The Mississippi River corridor is one of North America’s four major flyways. The Audubon Society estimates that more than 325 bird species use this route twice each year, flying between their breeding grounds in Canada and the northern United States and their wintering grounds along the Gulf of Mexico and in Central and South America. The public lands that comprise the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area benefit from this abundance and nurture it by protecting habitats for both migrating and nesting birds.
Songbirds are just one part of this large group of migratory species, and some of them stop in the Twin Cities area to nest during the summer months. We monitor songbirds along the upper Mississippi because they are important indicators of habitat quality and-because they are the most commonly observed wildlife-they are popular with park visitors.
There are 49 points scattered among nine city, county, and regional parks in the 72-mile length of the national park boundary. Each point is visited once in June to document all birds heard and seen. A total of 88 species have been documented, (average of 62 species per year) since surveys began in 2015.
While it has its share of forests, this set of survey points is unique for its coverage of grassland habitats. This is the only Great Lakes Network park in which the Bell’s Vireo has been found (four heard or seen in 2019). And it is one of only two parks (the other is Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in Michigan) that are home to nesting grassland birds such as Grasshopper Sparrows, Henslow’s Sparrows, and Dickcissels. Still, based on an analysis of of data collected from 2015 through 2018, the most common species were woodland and “urban" birds.
Source: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service
